Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
With the sound of canes hitting the wooden planks of the porch, I knew the Elders were satisfied.
Bang after bang as the nightmare returned. The tidal wave of evil came crashing down on our satiated bodies.
The canes reverberated off the wood, pound after pound.
Trial complete.
Not wanting to stand there under watchful eyes any longer, I violently put my cock away, lifted Fallon’s painted body into my arms, and stormed toward the lake to wash this paint off, leaving the ghosts of the Oleander trapped in the haint-blue entrance.
“Did we pass the Trial?” Fallon asked as she nuzzled her face against me.
8
Fallon
“Yeah.” His voice was thick as he answered. “I think we passed.”
I slumped against his chest. “Thank God.” He carried me in the darkness. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I also didn’t care.
We’d done it again.
I’d felt him inside me, and it turned out the first time wasn’t just a fluke. I’d never felt anything like— Sex wasn’t usually— I mean, yes, Jeoffrey and I had slept together, but not very often, and I’d never really found anything that special about it. It was almost a duty to perform, something a good girlfriend did.
But with Rafe, it was…
It made me suspect that Jeoffrey and I had never been doing it the right way. That there was always some missing component, a physical act devoid of… well, connection or intimacy.
All Rafe had to do, though, was touch any part of his skin to mine.
Then my body lit up in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
My body flushed with the orgasm he’d given me while deep inside me—another thing I had thought was a myth, along with intimacy during sex. The magazines said that penetrative sex could make women orgasm, but I’d just thought that was more of a fantasy than reality for most women, or that there was something wrong with me and I just didn’t work that way.
Um. Well, apparently there was a man who could make me come like that.
And, of course, it had to be Rafe. Because God had a sick sense of humor.
Still, I couldn’t stop clutching at his neck. If I only had a few more moments of holding him so close, of feeling his chest pressed against my body as he held me while he carried me—
I sighed, all the fight having been fucked out of me, and slumped against him. For once in my life, I stopped fighting and gave in.
But then it was always so easy to give in to Rafe. It always had been. He was the one person I ever let slip underneath my concrete walls, and it looked like he still knew the way in, even after all these years.
I was sure I’d be annoyed as fuck about it in the morning, but for right now? I let out another satisfied breath, releasing all the fear and anger and distress from having all those others touch me.
Finally, it was just me and Rafe.
Me, Rafe, a starlit sky, and soon I heard the lapping sound of the water against the shore. We’d made it to the lake.
I pressed my ear against Rafe’s chest, wanting to hear his heartbeat. Wanting to feel the life pulsing within him before he put me down. Before I lost his warmth.
I’d made his tux filthy, but he didn’t seem to care. He hadn’t even hesitated in picking me up. A rush of feelings hit me all at once. Conflicting emotions. Some faraway part deep inside me shouting that this wasn’t safe. That I was only opening myself up to him hurting me again.
But listening to that voice meant pulling away from him, and I just couldn’t do it yet. Not yet. Just a little longer. A little longer and then I’d remember everything else. All my reasons. My reasons had seemed so important earlier. Reasons to stay away from him. Reasons to always protect myself. To shield myself like a soldier going into battle. Shields up, always, then no one could ever hurt me; they’d never get close enough to stab at my fleshy bits. When they left me, I wouldn’t feel like a gaping abyss had opened up inside my chest that could never be filled by anyone else.
I’d been so devastated when I’d gotten to the boarding school Mrs. Jackson had paid for me to be sent to in the middle of our senior year. I’d only had a few months left, but she couldn’t allow that. No, I was too dangerous. I was a disaster she had to prevent.
But after I’d disappeared from Rafe’s world, my life had gone on.
Did he even ever wonder about me? Did he think about what my life was like, those endless days filled without him?
The new school had been horrible.
Wretched.
I thought California was supposed to be filled with nice, chilled-out surfers and hippie-type people.